THE BOOK: The Devil’s Fools.
PUBLISHED IN: 2022
THE AUTHOR: Mary Gilliland.
THE EDITOR: James Sherwood
THE PUBLISHER: Codhill Press.
SUMMARY: Subverting received traditions, embellishing mythic figures, the lyrics of The Devil’s Fools speak to and for those wanting heaven: modern pilgrims, medieval masons; seafarer, axe murderer, alcoholic; daughter, spouse, sibling, mother; a woman on pause, a monarch of the underworld, Eve stepping out past Eden. One country bombs another, there’s mass animal slaughter during epidemic, never-ending yard work, love letters from the dead. Humans sorrow and glory, mourn and thrive, treasure the will to live—with burdock and mushroom, apple and willow, cicada, cuckoo, brontosaurus, toad. The poems represent wild and delicious creaturely delusion, deception, vigor and joy.
THE BACK STORY: from an interview recently published at https://uca.edu/english/slant-feature-poet/ : “I schooled myself as a poet, in the 10,000 hours of mastery, thanks to the generosity of residency awards, opportunities I learned about as I was nearing 40. Protected silence and focused conversation with other writers and artists were the cloister, the religious order, I was made for! I took a rudimentary collection to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown; the manuscript and I returned home seven months later — both much better off. Ten years later, The Devil’s Fools was a finalist in the National Poetry Series, which showed that the poetry mojo was working. Two thirds of those poems are in the published book — each one of them much better for the skillful means of editing and time. “Time,” the I Ching says, “is the means of heaven.”
WHY THIS TITLE?: Infused with eco-logic, informed by feminism, and taking cues from Eve, Cain, Proserpine, Ulysses, Parsifal and selves present and past, the fifty poems of The Devil’s Fools question and illustrate myths of nature and the nature of inherited myth.
WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Here’s what several online reviewers say: Nancy Couto asserts that “all the poems in The Devil’s Fools, Mary Gilliland’s thoughtfully accomplished, resonant, deeply felt volume, deserve multiple readings. This book will stay with you.” Laurence Carr acclaims “Ms. Gilliland is a powerful poet and one of the few writers who can be called a mythmaker.” Marina Brown’s insights include “We see that a poet can admit to drinking too much at times, that she has loved and lost, and in an eight-page cascading download of what may be years of events, she carries us in a stream of consciousness torrent that leaves us breathless. And then, as if to give respite, she sends us to look at the sweet simplicity of a frog upended by a garden shovel….”
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“Mary Gilliland’s magisterial new collection, The Devil’s Fools, opens in myth and magic, but its vast reach is deeply rooted in her reverence for earth and all earthly creations. For Gilliland, to give a brief example, even so lowly a creature as the harvestfly—whose “aqua / lighter blue” wings as it hatches—has given us “the origin of faerie.” At once eco-sensual and erudite, Gilliland writes a nuanced poetry that richly investigates humanity’s contradictory capacities to destroy and to love. “Love’s a maker,” as the tour-de-force poem at the heart of this volume, “Among the Trees,” puts it. From first to last, I am spellbound by the largesse of vision and the beauty of this wondrous collection.” —Cynthia Hogue, author of In June the Labyrinth
“The Devil’s Fools is a great collection of burnished, mercurial poems. Here Mary Gilliland turns every small, disappearing moment into something magnanimous and lasting. Mythical and grounded, her sensuously rich language enacts a poetry in which self-concentration brims beyond the far reach of desire, passion, and the self. Supremely gifted, Gilliland’s The Devil’s Fools is one of the most daring, unfoolable books in recent memory.” —Ishion Hutchinson, author of House of Lords and Commons.
“From the opening line, “We have plenty of stories,” to the finale, Mary Gilliland’s The Devil’s Fools proves a wide-ranging narrative which incorporates tales from classical myth, the Bible, the speaker’s daily life, set in a world eroticized yet also spiritual. Through her stories, Gilliland examines the tensions of heterosexual relationships, a search for the divine in contemporary life, mystery in the daily. This book is both journey and celebration, glowing and tender. In a poetry full of images from the physical world, nature around us and the body’s earthliness, Gilliland gives us her “dirty yes to life”.” —Mary Crow, Poet Laureate of Colorado, author of I Have Tasted the Apple
“To see through Mary Gilliland’s eyes is to experience afresh and anew the wonders of encounter with the liminal, the mysterious, and the all too ubiquitous but largely unseen. Enjoy the ride! As Gilliland calls us in Dionysus’s voice, “Greet me by Apollo’s marble door, Meet me where Artemis drops spoor, Find me in the shadows of reliefs.” Indeed I will—and what a joy and journey awaits!” —Heidi M. Ravven, author of The Self Beyond Itself: An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free Will.
AUTHOR PROFILE: Mary Gilliland, past recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a Council on the Arts Faculty Grant from Cornell University, where she was instrumental in developing the Knight Institute for Writing and taught such courses as “Ecosystems & Ego Systems” for the Biology & Society Program and “Mind & Memory: Creativity in the Arts & Sciences” for the Society for the Humanities, has poems recently anthologized in Rumors Secrets & Lies: Poems on Pregnancy, Abortion & Choice and Wild Gods: The Ecstatic in Contemporary Poetry and Prose. Her newest poetry collection
The Devil’s Fools (2022) won the Codhill Press Pauline Uchmanowicz Award. Her won the Bright Hill Press Poetry collection.
The Ruined Walled Castle Garden (2020) won the Bright Hill Press Poetry Chapbook Award.
Born in Philadelphia, Mary Gilliland was raised in the incipient New Jersey suburbs. After college, she and her husband-to-be Peter Fortunato apprenticed with Gary Snyder, studying carpentry, ecology, and the great Zen texts while living off-grid on San Juan Ridge and earning money in Bay Area construction during the winter. Gilliland has also taught at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, held residencies in Scotland and the United States, traveled in Oman, Iceland, Egypt, Italy, Greece. Mary has helped build labyrinths and standing stone circles and been a board member of The Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, a founding board member of Light On The Hill Retreat Center, and Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies, the Dalai Lama’s seat in North America.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: For me, one of the most rewarding dimensions of literary success—the residencies, readings, reviews, interviews—is the joy that it inspires in others. I love hearing from readers, and encourage questions and comments from those who received my occasional poetry newsletter. I write a new issue every 4 – 8 weeks. Please let me know if I can add your address to my list! send me an email or use my contact form.
SAMPLE: This selection of works on the author’s website includes several audio & textual poems from The Devil’s Fools. Also, the SUNY Press has a button that lists the Table of Contents.
LOCAL OUTLETS: Odyssey Books, Buffalo Street Books.
WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: SUNY Press, Codhill Press, Bookshop, also Barnes & Noble, Amazon.
PRICE: $16
CONTACT THE AUTHOR:mg24@cornell.educontact form
Snowflakes in a Blizzard 